Army software enables quicker precision drone strikes against threats

FORT BENNING, Ga. — A technology demonstration this spring showed that Soldiers operating lethal assault drones were able to more rapidly perform precision strikes against enemy threats using technology developed by U.S. Army engineers from Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey.

The demonstration involved Hunt-Kill-Return Unmanned Aerial Systems, HKR UAS aided by a plugin to a Soldier’s Tactical Assault Kit called CNALT, or Collaborative Networked Armaments Lethality Technology.

The CNALT plug-in is an application that provides tactical fire control and visualization tools to reduce time in the kill chain — the cycle of finding and identifying targets, prioritizing, and coordinating attacks. Time is critical in military operations with targets in constant motion and considering that potential targets threaten harm to friendly forces.

Operators use CNALT for target awareness, mission planning, execution and orchestration of target engagements according to commander’s guidance. Operator interactions with CNALT lead to fire missions being sent to ground stations where operators control asset operations, including UAS.

CNALT was developed by engineers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, DEVCOM, Armaments Center from its headquarters at Picatinny Arsenal.

The demonstration was held from April 21 to May 1 during the Army Expeditionary Warrior Exercise. Through various hasty offensive and defensive missions carried out during day and nighttime operations, it was identified that execution of lethality was the participating unit’s top priority.

Rapid execution of kill-chains was accomplished by integrating the CNALT plugin with the 1st Battalion, 29 Infantry, 316th Cavalry Brigade Maneuver Battle Lab Experimental Force Human-Machine Integration, HMI, Platoon Leader.

A major goal of the demonstration was to match targets from commander’s guidance to available HKR systems and transmit fire missions directly to their ground control station.

“Right off the bat, during new equipment training, the Maneuver Battle Lab Experimental Force commander directly acknowledged that we nailed the user need and understood their capability gap by identifying friction points that were seen at Project Convergence Capstone 4 in 2024 with HMI assets, then building something to solve the problem,” said Marc Federico, a computer engineer at the Armaments Center.

CNALT filled the gap by providing networked lethality and situational awareness during mission planning to enable functional command and control of the HKR systems.

CNALT’s software was able to achieve the HMI Platoon Leader’s mission requirements by its exceptional ability to reduce the sensor-to-shooter timeline without overloading operators or networks with too much data.

CNALT also enabled the unit to efficiently transmit data and reduce the mission time for the HKR drone from minutes down to seconds with increased reliability, in sharp contrast to error-prone analog radio communications.

The HMI Platoon Leader also leveraged CNALT as a mission planning tool and inputted commander’s guidance to match assets against threats for target range, high payoff target list types, areas of engagement, probability of kill, ammunition expenditure and projected UAS battery life.

Armaments Center engineers were invited to further demonstrate the technology at the Concept Focused Warfighter Experiment 2026 Maneuver Event, as well as Project Convergence Capstone 6.

“CNALT is postured to be an extremely valuable capability for the Warfighter and facilitate integration of our critical industry partners,” said Federico. “It can be leveraged by the industrial base for drone development, shaping how these platforms can communicate on the Integrated Tactical Network.”

“CNALT is helping to drive transformation by enabling collaborative fires and formation-based lethality,” Federico added, saying the goal is to have the technology continue to gain exposure and acceptance with more experimentation and Soldier engagements to inform requirements and standards in the lethal UAS domain.